Eternum Vale
by Nagumo
Summary: Takaishi Natsuko does not believe in vampires. And yet her obsessed father desperate to make her believe compels Natsuko to interview one by the name of Makino Ruki.


One a bored fanfic writer decided she wanted a new story to make. A fresh one but about vampires and after reading Anne Rice, it hit her just then. And no I did not take Anne Rice's novel and plagiarize it!

Various characters from Digimon but will not include characters from Frontiers.

**__**

Dominus Deus  
exaudi nos et misrere  
exaudi, Dominus

Lord God  
Hear us, the wretched  
Hear us, Lord

Chapter 1: Takaishi Natsuko

It was seven thirty p.m. and Takaishi Natsuko was tired. Perhaps coming here to this hotel room was a bad idea. There was no telling what type of hoax that her father was pulling or what type of freak might come into the room. For all she cared this was just another prank her father pulled to make her believe in his silly stories about forty years ago and a vampire that supposedly entered his life. 

The hotel room was nice and made her feel mildly awed. The light blue walls and white ceiling was a nice color combination that was soothing. The expensive hardwood chairs and tables were quite plain but it was a rich mahogany whose reddish tinge seemed to glitter in the white light above it. The room was not too brightly lit but enough for Natsuko look around the room. On the wall to her left was a mirror that reflected serenely the room it beheld, pleasant, simple and tasteful... Tastefully expensive, it made Natsuko's mind boggle that someone would rent out the grand executive suite of one of the most expensive hotels in all of Tokyo for a simple interview, which her father had insisted that she take. If her father was trying to pull a hoax, then it was a very expensive hoax that would most likely put him out of the black and deep into the red until the day he died.

It wasn't best to think like that and yet she wouldn't put it past her father, desperate to make her believe in his stories. Of names that she could care less about and places that she had never been to and most of all, whoever Makino Ruki was. Her father to put simply was obsessed, he had been for almost ten years when all of a sudden during her wedding, Takaishi Micheal came in from the soaking wet rain and into the church blubbering about a woman named Ruki.

'She hasn't aged at all, mon Dieu, I saw her again Natsuko! I saw her again! Here in Tokyo! She's somewhere in Tokyo! Makino Ruki still exists!' Natsuko remembered Micheal practically shout with excitement. The way his eyes seemed to light up with his discovery while she stood in her white wedding dress being shaken by the shoulder by her father. The priest overseeing the wedding looked on confused wondering what was happening. At first Natsuko thought her father was 'dans les vignes du Seigneur' or in plain Japanese, drunk. But he wasn't, he was completely sober and completely wet and late for the wedding. She remembered being very angry with him for saying such things; didn't he know that this was her wedding and he was late for it?

'Why should I care! You know that this marriage isn't even going to last seven years!' Micheal retorted. Natsuko remembered vaguely of punching her father in the face for saying that and she never felt so embarrassed by the fact she had in fact managed to knock him out that day. The priest of the ceremony was shocked by the blatant act of violence that another priest had to take his place to consecrate the marriage. After the wedding, Takaishi Micheal disappeared and only occasionally called his daughter and only visited his grandsons twice.

"And damn him... It only lasted six years..." Natsuko said under her breathe. Her divorce with Ishida Hiroaki was messy when it finally happened. She sometimes only had to look at her oldest son Yamato to see the damage done to him while Takeru seemed to hide it all under a bright happy face. She wasn't sure which of the two she should be more concerned of. The one who showed the hurt or the one who didn't. It had been four years since the divorce but Natsuko liked to think she was doing well. She sent her son to school where he was captain of the basketball team, paid her rent and car payments and met the needs of her life.

Natsuko sat on the bed, which had white linen sheets, unruffled and soft to touch, and waited still for her mysterious vampire interviewee. A plain black tape recorder laid beside her as did three blank cassettes. It was now 7:45 p.m. and Makino Ruki had not yet arrived. Outside it had begun to snow but Natsuko paid no attention to it. It was silent as could be until she heard a voice piercing through the weakly lit room, unhurried and mild.

"I am sorry to keep you waiting... Traffic was a little worse then I thought and it took awhile for me to arrive," a feminine voice intoned rather unapologetically. Then there was the click of the light switch and the room became bright. Natsuko snapped her eyes up to see the owner of the voice and drew in a breath and held it in here throat, unable to exhale or scream. She could only stare and stare.

The woman Natsuko beheld what was Makino Ruki. It was not what she had expected Ruki to be. Natsuko imagined that the woman her father obsessed about was as old as he was. Wrinkled and maybe stooped with age with grey or white hair but no, Makino Ruki was not an old woman as Natsuko had envisioned her. The sight that is Makino Ruki was that of a young woman, tall and beautiful. So beautiful it made Natsuko almost ache, Ruki's eyes were of the most brilliant purple as though they were amethyst gems and her long hair was strawberry blonde, almost red and yet not really red, that was pulled back into a pony tail. And her face whose flesh was as white as a marble statue was blank and yet filled with some mysterious drive that Natsuko could only guess. This statue however moved and removed her hand from the light switch area before becoming still. Natsuko could see that Ruki was dressed simply in blue jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt and over that was a large brown leather jacket that had seen better days. In her arms was a simple brown paper bag with some sort of bottle in it.

Natsuko managed to exhale shakily before inhaling again. That was when Ruki moved forward with the grace of a predatory feline, taut and ready to channel it's energy in an explosion of movement when necessary. The white of Ruki's skin was a remarkable contrast to the color of her clothing, drab and dulled as they were, and made them seem brighter despite the obvious age of them. Ruki quickly took a leather seat near the window of the hotel room a little away from where Natsuko was sitting on the bed. They were face to face almost, the only thing between them was a table which had a clean empty ashtray. There was no sound emitted as Ruki quickly took her seat, Natsuko then realized that Ruki had not made a single noise as she walk across the hardwood floor of the hotel room. Not even a squeak from her sneakers or a creak from the doors to signal her arrival. It unnerved Natsuko and yet she felt that she could not look away from this vampire.

This was crazy, there was simply no way that all that her father had said about vampires was true and yet, there Ruki sat. Unflinching and heartbreakingly beautiful with her purple amethyst eyes piercing right through Natsuko. Ruki was still as if musing on what to say next.

"Turn on the tape recorder," Ruki ordered. There was no threat or force in her voice and yet Natsuko immediately complied without question. Natsuko found that her hands were shaking and fumbled with the tape cassettes as she loaded them into the tape recorder. She quickly placed the tape recorder on the table and waited for Ruki to say something else. Ruki said nothing for a moment and placed the paper bag on the table, in which Natsuko could see two wine bottles. They were placed on the table without a sound.

"I find it hard to believe that you would actually be here. Micheal was quite sure that you skip out on this interview believing it as a hoax... I suppose somewhat that I was hoping that you would skip out but that hardly matters now. You are here, let us start shall we?" Ruki said in a distracted voice as if the interview was nothing to her in the slightest bit. She seemed more interested in the wine bottles she had placed on the table and that if all of a sudden Natsuko was to die sitting on the bed that Ruki would not be concerned one way or the other and simply leave or take quaffs from her bottles. Natsuko found that she could not speak and continued to stare at Ruki but was trying not to. It was obvious that Ruki did not care if Natsuko was staring and calmly looked back at her.

"I assure you, mademoiselle Takaishi, that I will not harm you. I suggest you take a few moments to calm down. I would offer you a drink but these bottles are not filled with wine."

"I suppose you are to tell me that they are filled with blood?" Natsuko asked disbelievingly. The nervousness was forgotten the moment Ruki told her calm down, it was quite surprising but Natsuko ignored her sudden loss of anxiety. It was then that Ruki smiled amused by Natsuko's dubious tone of voice as she asked the question. 

"Yes, I assume that your father, Micheal, has told you everything about vampires. How the old legends of garlic, crucifixes and other such nonsense is a hoax? Fantastic and amateurish attempts and explanations and other such things? You must be sick and tired of hearing it, I can only guess what he has said on the topic but I am sure he has talked to you about me."

"Yes, he has. Makino Ruki, a vampire in Paris from the Far East... If you don't mind me saying this to you, you don't look very Asian."

"Not at all, I get that a lot."

"......"

"You look as if you do not believe... But I wonder is it because you don't believe I am a Japanese or the fact I claim to be a vampire or both?"

"I admit I believe neither of your claims. I don't believe any of this. I don't believe that you are a vampire. It's just too fantastic, this is a sick joke that my father is pulling and he paid you...."

Ruki cut Natsuko short in mid sentence. Natsuko noted that Ruki did not look annoyed or even angry. Just simply amused by Natsuko's bald face statement of her disbelief.

"I am not here to make you believe. I am here for an interview... A story that I feel must be told. If you believe me or think I am a liar is of no consequence to me. The centuries have taught me to ignore what others say and think."

"So then... This story you are about to tell is more important to you than anyone's doubt or opinions?"

"Correct."

Natsuko paused, unsure how to continue. 

"Okay then, fine. I suppose you should start at the very beginning of your life, before you became a vampire."

"Then I will start with my childhood... Or as much as I can remember it."


End file.
